We’re NASA and we know it (Mars Curiosity)

August 20, 2012

A YouTube video titled We’re NASA and We Know It has gone viral since the video’s launch on August 15, 2012 with over 1.5 million views.

The video published on the Satire YouTube channel features a Jet Propulsion Laboratory “Mohawk Guy” look-a-like as the lead singer with NASA flight-suited break dancers surrounded by nerdy back-up dancers dressed in baby-blue NASA mission control polo shirts and khakis.

Exploiting the common use of acronyms in both NASA lingo and rap music, the song’s modified lyrics of LMFAO’s Sexy and I Know It start with “When I EDL [Entry, Descent, and Landing], time for seven minutes of flamin’ hell.”

Mars may be cold, but the Mars Curiosity mission itself has become a hot news topic that is just as likely to be featured on E! Entertainment News as it is on geeky astronomy websites thanks in part to Bobak Ferdowsi (the real JPL Mohawk Guy) who has developed a female fan following since Curiosity’s landing. President Obama even jested about getting his own mohawk during his call to the Mars Rover Team last week.

Ferdowsi tweeted his thoughts on the video’s portrayal of himself: “Well played! @DubHud Video is hilarious & awesome, but don’t know that we can dance like that (see high5s for ref).”NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover also had its share of celebrity tweets this week since its landing on the Red Planet.

First, Britney Spears tweeted to Curiosity on August 14, “So @MarsCuriosity… does Mars look the same as it did in 2000?” which was followed with a link to the short space-themed clip of Britney’s Oops! I Did It Againvideo.

Then, on Friday August 17, Nancy Sinatra tweeted, “Hey, Curiosity. Thanks for liking my dad’s music!! He’s been to the moon so why not Mars too?!!”

To which Curiosity replied, “Fly me to the moon, play among the stars, see what spring is like on Jupiter & Mars? That’s @NASA‘s #GRAIL, @NASAJuno & me!”

Curiosity’s tweet quotes lyrics from Frank Sinatra’s Fly Me To The Moon while also proudly showing that NASA has active missions on the Moon (GRAIL), Jupiter (NASAJuno), and Mars (Curiosity).

Nancy Sinatra then quipped, “That response from @MarsCuriosity is out of this world!!”

NASA and Nancy Sinatra’s father, Frank Sinatra, have a shared history in the golden age of American pop culture during the height of the Space Race. Frank Sinatra’s Fly Me To The Moon was played on the moon (alluded to in Nancy Sinatra’s first tweet) during the Apollo 11 landing. The viral YouTube video may just be a modern day version of NASA’s conintinuing influence on American pop culture.